At some point in our childhood, most of us had a teacher that we didn't like. Some of even hated that particular teacher. I didn't have any issues with a teacher until the ninth grade, when I managed to get an English teacher I shall never forget. I'll call her Miss Smith.For some reason, I could do nothing correctly in Miss Smith's eyes. This was very difficult for me because I had never had any problems with English. In fact, I did exceptionally well in every English class I had taken until Miss Smith's class. In that class, I received sub-par grades on just about every assignment. I truly believe that she disliked me. Why she did, I don't know. She even accused me of cheating on a quiz when I had not cheated.
I managed to somehow redeem myself with her on the last assignment in the course, which was a short story. I wrote a cheesy sword-and-sorcery tale that ripped off just about every fantasy story and action movie I could think of, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Conan the Barbarian. In a weird about-face, Miss Smith gushed about my short story (which I believe was called "The Chalice"). She called it "compelling" and "masterful."
Unfortunately, on my other English assignments, the comments that I received from Miss Smith were much less complimentary. For instance, in one assignment, I had written a sentence that began with "and," followed by a sentence that began with "but." In huge red letters in the margin, Miss Smith wrote something like this: "It is NEVER permissible to begin a sentence with either one of these conjunctions. Whoever taught you that you could use them in such a way did you a grave disservice."
Ah, Miss Smith, how wrong you were. In fact, it appears that you did a grave disservice to me, an impressionable fourteen-year-old who anxiously clung to this grammar "rule" for several years before deciding that it was nonsense. You see, there is simply no grammar rule that prohibits a writer from using the conjunctions "and" or "but" to begin a sentence. Random House's Word of the Day mavens note that writers have used "and" and "but" to begin sentences for centuries:
Sentences beginning with "and" or "but" are found in English as early as the ninth century, in the Old English Chronicle, and such sentences can also be found in Shakespeare, the King James Bible, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Lord Macaulay, Charles Dickens, and others.
Patricia O'Conner, author of the fantastic grammar book Woe Is I, notes that writers should feel free to use "and" and "but" to begin sentences, but not to overdo it. Just like any other type of stylistic device in writing, overuse of a particular word or phrase can make writing dull.
And so, Miss Smith, wherever you are, I'd like to leave you with a quote from Charles Allen Lloyd, who taught English (among other subjects) for 30 years. This is what he said about Miss Smith's admonition in his book, We Who Speak English:
One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves.
2 comments:
And apparently Miss Smith never watched movies to see your Indiana Jones/Conan knock off for what it was. But it got you a good grade. And that's good. But I have nothing else to say. And I'll keep on saying it. But this will be it. And. But.
Haha! Awesome post Jim. I was lucky enough to have awesome English teachers throughout HS and college. But I do remember hearing that rule quite often. I always thought it was wrong. Man, that would've made a lot of papers a lot easier.
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